Back at the North Division offices, a large envelope from Martha Walczyk sat on his desk. He dropped off Stone’s laptop with The Gecko, telling him to have it dusted for prints before he got to work on it which, Gabriel understood, wouldn’t happen till Thursday.
Then he drove back downtown to the YMCA for hoops. Basketball was art, meditation, and dance all rolled into one. A few trips up and down the court, a couple of jump shots, and all his thoughts and cares slid from him like warming snow from a pitched roof.
Afterward, he hung around the locker room for a couple hours—shooting the breeze with Fearn on basketball and the job, meditating in the sauna, getting a massage, and reading magazines in the TV room.
He took a walk downtown. No point in going back to the office. Most everyone would be marking time awaiting the holiday. And being “detached” from the organizational chart meant that he worked with little or no supervision.
Snow—turning progressively darker shades of gray—remained in piles along the curbs. Though still mid-afternoon the sky too darkened. His ears stung from the cold.
At Macy’s he looked at the window displays. He recalled a similar snowy afternoon some fifty years earlier, holding his mother’s hand, his father at her side, gazing at the toy trains and animated puppets. Even then, at that age, he noted the stares his parents drew—a black man with a light-skinned Latina was a rare sight in a largely segregated city. Now, however, whenever he dated a white woman no one seemed to give a damn, or at least didn’t make their feelings known.
It was nearly five when Gabriel walked into the Missouri Bar and Grille, a few blocks down Tucker Boulevard from City Hall. For years a hangout for cops, newspaper people, ballplayers, cabbies, and other night prowlers. Open three-hundred-sixty-five days a year and serving food and drinks till three a.m. The blue neon lights and aligned liquor bottles on the back bar made it feel nice and seedy and old-fashioned. Signed photos of celebrities and athletes adorned the walls. Tonight lots of loud conversation. He found Laura Berkman sitting at the bar and managed to squeeze in next to her.
“Thought you had forgotten about me,” she said.
“You’re always on my mind. Just didn’t want to arrive before you did and have to talk to assholes. You know how I am sometimes—capable of ‘brutal force’ and ‘violating civil rights.’”
“Glad to see you’ve buried the hatchet.”
“I’d like to bury it in that bastard’s skull. But that’s all in the past, right? Now words are my only weapons. I’m getting into literature and language.”
Berkman smiled and combed back her hair with her fingers as if to draw attention to her face—still unlined at forty and attractive in a sultry, gypsy way. Large earrings dangling. A slender neck. “You had a drink yet?” Gabriel shook his head. “Then let’s get you started.”
He ordered a Bud Light and a shot of Dickel, and Berkman said, “I understand you’re on special assignment for the mayor.”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that rumor.”
“You know everything’s always off the record with me, Carlo, until you tell me different.”
“Let’s just say I’ve got something going that might bring me back to my rightful place in the pecker order.”
She smiled. “True enough, that. But at least nowadays there’s some dark meat in the queue.”
Gabriel grabbed his whiskey as the bartender slid it to him. He took a sip. “My ticket was punched before the shit hit. Captain, maybe even Deputy Commander. Five years and out with a fat pension, then Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama. Somewhere warm with hot babes.”
“Join me in Jerusalem.”
“Tempting. But I prefer somewhere they don’t speak English so there are fewer misunderstandings. Is that that prick Schaeffer?”
Berkman turned. “Saffer. He’s a good newspaperman.”
Gabriel straightened. “I take issue with that. When you plaster allegations of police misconduct and excessive force on page one and then, six months later when the officer is cleared, you run two paragraphs about it on page twelve, that doesn’t strike me as particularly good journalism.”
Berkman raised an eyebrow. “You can snow others, but please spare me the rap. We all know the investigation was a whitewash and that you thumped the perp without cause. Otherwise you would have been reinstated instead of being detached and sent to the gulag for re-education.”
Gabriel shifted his shoulders. “When some no-good mother caps one of my men, that’s cause enough for me. Besides, I never laid a hand on him, just ‘rang up long distance.’”
“Cute that, the phone book atop his head, the nightstick banging it repeatedly with all your two-hundred-fifty pounds behind it. Couldn’t have felt good.”
“On the contrary, it felt great!”
“I know you were distraught—”
“No, not distraught. Angered. Irate. Way pissed-off.”
“Whatever. But next time remember to disable the cameras first or wear your mask.”
Gabriel leaned back. “Who told you about the mask?”
“I hope you’re joking.”
“You never know with me. I’m capable of most anything.”
“I find you most capable, lieutenant.”
“Good Scout, I always do my best. Now, if over the next week or two I can prove to the mayor how capable I am—professionally, that is—I’ll be back downtown with you and yours in the new year.”
“Fast work. Must be something hot.”
“And top secret.”
“Maybe another boilermaker will loosen your tongue.”
“Try all you want.”
“I intend to.”